Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/359

With other echo late I taught your shades861
To answer, and resound far other song."—
Whom thus afflicted when sad Eve beheld,
Desolate where she sat, approaching nigh,
Soft words to his fierce passion she assayed;
But her with stern regard he thus repelled:
"Out of my sight, thou serpent! that name best
Befits thee with him leagued, thyself as false
And hateful. Nothing wants, but that thy shape
Like his, and color serpentine, may shew870
Thy inward fraud, to warn all creatures from thee
Henceforth; lest that too heavenly form, pretended
To hellish falsehood, snare them. But for thee
I had persisted happy; had not thy pride
And wandering vanity, when least was safe,
Rejected my forewarning, and disdained
Not to be trusted; longing to be seen,
Though by the Devil himself; him overweening
To over-reach; but, with the serpent meeting,
Fooled and beguiled, by him thou, I by thee,880
To trust thee from my side; imagined wise,
Constant, mature, proof against all assaults;
And understood not all was but a shew,
Rather than solid virtue; all but a rib
Crooked by nature, bent, as now appears,
More to the part sinister, from me drawn:
Well if thrown out, as supernumerary